Your Right to Know

Furloughs for civilian Air Force employees could cost Ohio’s economy more than $111 million
through September, according to military documents obtained by a newspaper.

The
Dayton Daily News reported yesterday that the estimate is based on 22 days of unpaid time
off for 14,278 civilian Air Force personnel in the state, most of them at Wright-Patterson Air
Force Base near Dayton.

The base has said it could impose furloughs on up to 13,000 civilian workers if Congress and
President Barack Obama fail to avert automatic defense- and domestic-spending reductions set to
begin on March 1.

The Air Force has said it could furlough up to 180,000 civilian employees. Each would have to
receive a 30-day notice before leaving the job temporarily.

Air Force spokeswoman Ann Stefanek said on Tuesday that the numbers were accurate, but were “
constantly evolving.”

The Dayton Area Chamber of Commerce says the ripple effect of furloughs could have an economic
impact of $150 million or more in the Dayton area.

“The issue really is the economic impact is not predictable right now,” Joseph Zeis, Dayton
Development Coalition executive vice president and chief strategic officer, told the newspaper.

While potential furloughs would be significant, he said, “The ripple-down effects of that are
indeterminate.”

He said the loss in days on the job also could hurt national security, leaving fewer workers to
maintain aging Air Force warplanes as old as half a century.

In January, Wright-Patterson imposed a civilian hiring freeze, and it expects to terminate up to
344 temporary or term employees because of budget cuts.

Under the automatic cuts, Wright-Patterson also would cut 15 percent out of the base’s
operations spending. An additional $2.7 million wouldn’t be spent on infrastructure to replace
streetlights and to install a waterline, among other projects, documents show.

Wright-Patterson employed more than 29,700 military and civilian personnel in 2011 and had a
$4.7 billion economic impact.

An estimated 13,000 furloughs at Wright-Patterson represent about 3.4 percent of the work force
in Montgomery, Miami, Greene and Preble counties, said Richard Stock, director of the Business
Research Group at the University of Dayton.